Standing Committee A

[Mr. Peter Pike in the Chair]

Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Pike. Before we return to new clause 49, may I raise the subject of timetabling? Although I am grateful to the Government Whip for accommodating me by agreeing to end the previous sitting slightly early—by 10 minutes—the Committee would nevertheless have had to adjourn at about half-past 6 because Committee business is always subservient to what is going on in the House. As a result, we did not have the opportunity to put in extra time on Tuesday, yet here we are, on the last day of the Committee's proceedings, timetabled to finish at 5.15 pm.
 I have just quickly counted up, and we still have three new clauses to dispose of, and 89 clauses and six schedules still to debate. That is in respect of a Bill that was originally 90 clauses long, and had six schedules. We do not know how many new clauses there will be to deal with at the end of the day, but it would be an absolute outrage and an abuse of parliamentary democracy, having unprecedentedly recommitted the Bill to a Standing Committee, if this second Standing Committee still does not have time to consider vast chunks of the Bill. Those outside who watch our proceedings will be absolutely baffled by the Government's timetabling of Committees. 
 I warned the Government when the order to recommit the Bill to a Standing Committee was made in June that eight sittings would not be enough, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) said the same at least once during business questions. At our first sitting, I pleaded with the Government, saying that eight sittings was not enough. After all, if 12 sittings was not enough for the original Bill, it should have been clear that eight would not be enough for this Standing Committee to consider a Bill with a huge extra amount added to it. 
 I was given an undertaking by the previous Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), that we would have enough time not only to deal with the new stuff that the Government rightly wanted to include and the Bill itself, but to allow other members of the Committee to add to our debate. Indeed, they have added hugely to our debate by raising other important planning matters—even if the Government are not going to accede in respect of them, it has been most useful to have had such a debate. 
 I ask whether you, Mr. Pike, have been given any indication by Government business managers that they intend to come forward at any time today to suggest adjourning for the Programming Sub-Committee to meet. My hon. Friend the Member for 
 Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), the silent one who works through the usual channels, and I would be more than willing, as I am sure would the Liberal Democrats, to consider adjourning at any time for that purpose. We could put in a day or two extra next week—we would be perfectly flexible and willing to do that—or even remove the 5.15 pm barrier and put in a few extra hours this evening.

Peter Pike: Order. I think the hon. Gentleman has made his case at sufficient length.

Keith Hill: Further to that point of order, Mr. Pike. I appreciate the remarks made by the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), although I recognise the slightly ritualistic nature of such protestations. I remind you and the Committee that the parts of the Bill that are still to be debated were subject to extensive—indeed, intensive—debate in our earlier sittings.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Pike.

Peter Pike: Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot raise another point of order while we are dealing with the first.

Keith Hill: Part 1 of the Bill, which was the major area of contention for the Opposition, was subject to detailed analysis during those earlier sittings. I also remind the Committee that, by agreement, we introduced the Opposition's new clauses as well as our own so that they could be properly debated. No knives whatever have been imposed in our proceedings. We have always made it absolutely clear to the Opposition that we are open to representations at any stage to add time by deliberating further into the evening and by convening on a Wednesday.
 I am sure that I speak for all my colleagues when I say that we are perfectly content to debate the Bill until midnight tonight, if the Opposition so desire it. I remind the Committee, however, that careful analysis of the timetable shows that we have spent a mere 28 per cent. of the Committee's time on the Government's new clauses, which means that 72 per cent. has been spent discussing the Opposition's new clauses and amendments. In my view, the Opposition have had ample scope to make their recommendations, although we are open, through the usual channels, to accommodating any negotiations that might occur this morning.

Andrew Turner: Further to that point of order, Mr. Pike. I appreciate that the first part of the Bill might have been considered in detail in the previous Committee, but the remaining parts have not. I accept that new clauses tabled by Opposition Members have been debated, but a huge number of amendments have been tabled to other parts of the Bill, so I am especially pleased to hear the Minister accept that we might go on until midnight. If that is a genuine offer, it would be wise for us to consider adjourning so that the Programming Sub-Committee may meet.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Further to that point of order, Mr. Pike. Members on this side of the Committee have made their point powerfully. I refute what the Minister
 says. As my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) pointed out, parts 1 and 2 may have been discussed at some length in the previous Committee, but vast chunks of this Bill were not. We have not yet discussed very important matters such as simplified planning zones, major infrastructure projects, statements of development principles, the duration of consents or twin-tracking, all of which are greatly exercising practitioners. Those practitioners will be completely baffled if the Committee does not discuss those issues.
 On behalf of my colleagues, I am happy to accept that the Programming Sub-Committee should sit now, and I will happily participate if the Committee wants to go on until midnight. A much better way of conducting our business would be for the Programming Sub-Committee to sit and to add an extra day to our proceedings whenever convenient, which could be as early as next week.

Peter Pike: There are several points of order, to which I will respond with care. I was Chairman of the original Committee and I am well aware of all the points that have been made. The Modernisation Committee has been considering how programming has been working, and has examined those Committees where it has worked well and those where it might be judged not to have worked well. I shall not pass comment on the category into which this Committee might fall. As Chairman of the original Committee, I was able to bring the Programming Sub-Committee up to date at yesterday's meeting.
 The Modernisation Committee's report will, I hope, be finalised next week and will be debated before the Sessional Orders are debated, which will probably be in the first week of November, before the next Session. I hope that that helps Members on the general issue of programming. The House will express its view on that report, which may not conform with what the Committee agrees or with what the Leader of the House proposes for Sessional Orders. 
 On the question that I was asked at the start of today's sitting, I have been told that there will be a move to hold a sitting of the Programming Sub-Committee at some point this morning, but that it will be about the order of proceedings, which could change in the interim. I do not know what sensible discussion outside this Room might come up with. If the Government Whip comes to me with a proposal regarding a sitting of the Programming Sub-Committee, I will accept such a motion. However, it will be more appropriate to discuss that when we reach that stage, rather than continuing hypothetically. I do not know yet what will be put to me. Does that help the Committee?

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Thank you, Mr. Pike, for that helpful explanation. I am grateful, and I am sorry that we had to spend a little time on that matter. However, it is important.

New clause 49 - Local development plan

'(1) The local planning authority must prepare and maintain a plan to be known as the local development plan (''the plan''). 
 (2) The plan must specify— 
 (a) the documents which are to be local development plan documents; 
 (b) the subject matter and geographical area to which each document is to relate; 
 (c) which documents (if any) are to be prepared jointly with one or more other local planning authorities which will be treated the same as if one single authority had prepared it; 
 (d) any matter or area in respect of which the authority have agreed (or propose to agree) to the constitution of a joint committee under section 28; 
 (e) the timetable for the preparation and revision of the documents; 
 (f) such other matters as are prescribed. 
 (3) The local planning authority may withdraw their plan at any time before it is formally adopted. 
 (4) The local planning authority must— 
 (a) prepare the plan in accordance with such other requirements as are prescribed; 
 (b) submit the plan to the Secretary of State at such time as is prescribed or as the Secretary of State (in a particular case) directs; 
 (c) at that time send a copy of the plan to the RPB or (if the authority are a London borough) to the Mayor of London; 
 (d) prepare, publish and have regard to a Statement of Community Involvement as negotiated by Section 4 of the Local Government Act 2000 (c22). 
 (5) The Secretary of State may direct the local planning authority to make such amendments to the plan as he thinks appropriate, but only when the Secretary of State and Authority can not agree on any matter. 
 (6) A direction under subsection (5) above must contain the Secretary of State's reasons for giving it. 
 (7) The local planning authority must comply with a direction given under subsection (5). 
 (8) The Secretary of State may make regulations as to the following matters— 
 (a) publicity about the plan; 
 (b) making the plan available for inspection by the public; 
 (c) requirements to be met for the purpose of bringing the plan into effect. 
 (9) The local planning authority must revise their local development plan— 
 (a) at such time as they consider appropriate; or 
 (b) when directed to do so by the Secretary of State. 
 (10) Subsections (2) to (8) apply to the revision of a plan as they apply to the preparation of the plan. 
 (11) When preparing the local development plan under subsection (1) above, the local planning authority must have regard to— 
 (a) national policies and advice contained in guidance issued by the Secretary of State; 
 (b) the RSS for the region in which the area of the authority is situated, if the area is outside Greater London; 
 (c) the spatial development strategy if the authority in a London borough or if any part of the authority's area adjoins Greater London; 
 (d) the RSS for any region which adjoins the area of the authority; 
 (e) the Wales Spatial Plan if any part of the authority's area adjoins Wales; 
 (f) the community strategy prepared by the authority; 
 (g) the community strategy for any other authority whose area comprises any part of the area of the local planning authority; 
 (h) any other local development plan which has been adopted by the authority; 
 (i) the resources likely to be available for implementing the proposals in the document; 
 (j) such other matters as the Secretary of State prescribes. 
 (12) The local planning authority must submit their local development plan to the Secretary of State for independent examination. 
 (13) But the authority must not submit such a document unless— 
 (a) they have complied with any relevant requirements contained in regulations under this Part, and 
 (b) they are satisfied that the plan is ready for independent examination. 
 (14) The authority must also send to the Secretary of State (in addition to the development plan) such other documents (or copies of documents) and such information as is prescribed. 
 (15) The examination must be carried out by a person (''the independent inspector'') appointed by the Secretary of State. 
 (16) The purpose of an independent examination is to determine in respect of the development plan— 
 (a) whether it satisfies the requirements in this section; and 
 (b) whether it is sound. 
 (17) Any person who makes representations seeking to change a development plan must (if he so requests) be given the opportunity to submit his representation in writing to the independent inspector, who shall decide whether or not that person shall be heard at the examination. 
 (18) The independent inspector must— 
 (a) make recommendations; and 
 (b) give reasons for such recommendations. 
 (19) The local planning authority must publish recommendations made under subsection (18).—[Mr. Clifton-Brown.]
 Brought up, and read the First time. 
 Motion made [21 October], That the clause be read a Second time. 
 Question again proposed.

Peter Pike: I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
 Amendment No. 149, in 
clause 14, page 8, line 35, after 'appropriate', insert 
 'within 8 weeks of receipt of the scheme.'.
 Clause 14 stand part. 
 Amendment No. 285, in 
clause 15, page 9, line 12, leave out 'scheme' and insert 'plan'.
 Amendment No. 286, in 
clause 15, page 9, line 15, leave out 'scheme' and insert 'plan'.
 Amendment No. 152, in 
clause 16, page 9, line 28, at end insert— 
 '(aa) a strategic planning statement; 
 (ab) the appropriate authority's Local Transport Plan;'.
 Government amendment No. 80. 
 Amendment No. 150, in 
clause 16, page 9, line 42, leave out subsection (6).
 Amendment No. 151, in 
clause 16, page 10, line 9, after 'document', insert 'or'.
 Clause 16 stand part. 
 Amendment No. 154, in 
clause 18, page 10, line 29, after 'to', insert 'all material considerations including'
 Government amendment No. 83. 
 Clause 18 stand part. 
 Amendment No. 155, in 
clause 19, page 11, line 22, at end insert 
 'who will decide whether the examination should be in the form of a public inquiry examination or hearing.'
 Amendment No. 156, in 
clause 19, page 11, line 28, at end insert 'in all material respects.'
 Clause 19 stand part. 
 Government amendment No. 2. 
 Amendment No. 157, in 
clause 20, page 12, line 3, after first 'a', insert 
 'local development document other than a.'
 Government amendment No. 84. 
 Amendment No. 158, in 
clause 20, page 12, leave out lines 16 to 18 and insert— 
 '(d) The document may be taken into account for the purposes of developmental control by the authority until the Secretary of State has approved, modified or rejected the document or part (if the direction relates to only part of a document).'
 Clauses 20, 21 and 25 stand part.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: When the Committee was usefully adjourned by the Government Whip, we were discussing new clause 49 and with it a large group of Government and Opposition amendments as well as a number of instances of clause stand part. We have not had any of those clause stand part debates, so it might be helpful if I quickly run over those clauses.

Peter Pike: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but because discussions may go on outside, it might be helpful if I make one point absolutely clear. The out date cannot be changed, because the House has agreed to it. I mention that because I know that people are withdrawing for discussion outside and it would be wrong for me not to make it absolutely clear. I cannot accept a motion that changes that date.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Further to that, Mr. Pike, does that mean that whatever happens in the Programming Sub-Committee today, we cannot alter the out time of 5.15 this afternoon?

Peter Pike: We can alter the time, but the date is fixed by the House and it is has appeared on the Order Paper. I want to make that clear, because it would be misleading if Members thought that they could change it. If we had looked at the matter earlier, we might have been able to make a change, as we could have tabled a motion to be discussed on the Floor of the House. We cannot do that now because we are in Committee and there is no way that we could get the House to change the motion.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Thank you, Mr. Pike. I take it that we would be in order if the Programming Sub-Committee decided that the Committee could run to
 midnight, but that at one minute past midnight we would be out of order.

Peter Pike: Yes.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: May I proceed to debate clause stand part, which we have not discussed?
 First, I want to discuss clause 14 stand part. I tell the Government gently that clause 14(4), as I suggest in my new clause, should include some form of conciliation. It is better if the Secretary of State can negotiate with local planning authorities as to what should be in their plans, prior to issuing the sledgehammer of direction. My hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman) made that point in his succinct summing up, immediately after a complicated debate. Conciliation is a better procedure than direction. Regarding clause 14(2)(f) and (g), it seems to me that the Secretary of State has more than adequate powers to deal with clause 14(8). There may be a bit of repetition. 
 Clause 16 is fairly superfluous, and could well have been incorporated into clause 14 with great usefulness. The benefit of the new clause, as has been recognised, is that it is consolidating. It has been recognised through the Committee that the shorter and more concise we can keep legislation, the easier it is for those who have to put it into operation. I have considerable sympathy for those poor people who will have to enact the provisions of this highly complicated Bill. I shall come back to that. 
 Clause 16 is repetitive. Clause 18 is sensible, and I have largely covered it in my new clause. I should like to ask the Minister for clarification of clause 19 on independent examination. My hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh asked the Minister after the last sitting—therefore, it does not appear in the record—whether, in an independent examination, all local development plan documents would be examined. I think that the Minister said that they would, but I should like to have that clarified on the record. I should also like to know why the local development scheme and the local development documents are not subject to independent examination. They are the policies that instruct the local development plan documents in that hierarchy, which my hon. Friend so eloquently summed up at the end of the last sitting. 
 Clause 20 is about intervention by the Secretary of State in local development control. It gives the Secretary of State almost unlimited power over the local planning process. Bearing in mind also the regional planning process, if planning is controlled to that degree from Whitehall, what is the point of having a local plan process? I should have thought that the Government would have learned by now. When the Government came to power, the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), as Secretary of State for Health, spent two years concentrating the running of the health service in Whitehall. The Government have been trying ever since to unravel what he did. If that happened in the 
 health service, why are we repeating the mistake in the planning process? 
 Local democracy should work. Local councillors are elected because they know their own locality better than anybody else. The lower down the scale, the better people know what is wanted in their areas. The hon. Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Rooney) shakes his head, but it is true, unless his area is remarkably different from every other area of the United Kingdom, that local people have strong views on what should happen in their areas. They might not participate in the plan-making process, but when a controversial planning application comes up in an area, local people will be out on the street demonstrating. 
 I put down a strong marker from the Opposition that the Bill is a hugely centralising measure, which will put power in the hands of the Secretary of State. I am not sure that that is wise. Clause 21, on the withdrawal of local development documents, could have been usefully consolidated in another clause. I draw the Committee's attention to a quirk in clause 25, on the revision of local development documents, that I should have addressed in my new clause and did not. Subsections (4) and (5) concern enterprise zones. Perhaps we can tease out from the Minister how they interrelate. Subsection (4) says: 
''Subsection (5) applies if any part of the area of the local planning authority is an area to which an enterprise zone scheme relates.'' 
 The important bit of that is ''any part'' of the area. Subsection (5) goes on: 
 ''As soon as practicable after the occurrence of a relevant event . . . the authority must review every local development document in the light of the enterprise zone scheme . . . if they think that any modifications of the document are required in consequence of the scheme they must prepare a revised document''.
 That means that if an enterprise zone is proposed in any part of a local authority's area, all the local plan documents have to be revised. I am not sure that that is sensible. There might be an enterprise zone in one part of a local planning authority's area that has no effect whatever on the rest of the area, yet all the documents have to be revised. Will the Minister look at the two subsections and see whether they are drafted as they should be, or whether I have misunderstood? 
 I move on to my new clause 49 and some of the amendments. When the Minister told me earlier in the proceedings that he took my new clause very, very seriously—I hope that I remember his words correctly—I had, against all possible dreams, hoped that he was thinking of accepting some of it. I was quite unrealistic in that expectation. Furthermore, I had not anticipated him adopting some of the more draconian methods of dealing with the problem or reading out a huge brief prepared by his civil servants that was obviously written before I explained my new clause. Therefore, he did not take into account any of the remarks that I made. 
 I also did not anticipate that the Minister would misrepresent the new clause—I do not say deliberately—and therefore start off on the wrong premise and come to the wrong conclusion. The main 
 way he has done that is in assuming that the new clause refers to one development plan. It does not—it clearly states that there will be local development plan documents. 
 I accept a lot of what the Minister said in his long speech about the deficiencies in the existing system, such as the inflexibility as well as the time and difficulty in getting a revision due to the need to revise the whole plan. We feel that the existing system with amendments could have been made to work and that tearing it up and replacing it with a highly complicated new system will make a paradise for lawyers. We will see judicial reviews and all manner of case law created as a result of the Bill, which will add to the delay that it will bring.

Andrew Turner: Will my hon. Friend acknowledge that the Bill will create not only a paradise for lawyers, but a nightmare for planning authorities, particularly those trying to introduce the local development frameworks in the first phase, because they have recently heard from the Deputy Prime Minister that work done before the Bill receives Royal Assent will have to be done again? Many have already embarked on such work.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: My hon. Friend, as so often in the Committee, raises a good point. In our last sitting, the Minister said that he hoped that all local planning authorities would have their development schemes in place by the end of 2004 and that all the documents had to be in place by 2007, which is totally unrealistic. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend, sotto voce, says that that cannot be done. He has considerable experience of the planning system through his work as councillor, as have I, working as a chartered surveyor over a number of years. I can tell everybody who is not used to such work that the new system is highly complicated and, as he says, it will be difficult for planning officers to bring it in quickly.
 The Minister took the wrong slant not only on the plans, but on a number of issues in my new clause, and then came up with the wrong conclusions—considering that he had all the time in the world to study my new clause, I find that mildly irritating. Therefore, I do not think that a lot of his criticism stands the test of scrutiny. 
 I accept absolutely, however, what the Minister said about the existing system being inadequate, in that it is too slow and that 31 authorities do not have a plan in place. The Committee will not be surprised to learn that a number of practitioners and large developers who use the planning system have been through my offices in the last few weeks. The one thing they all say is, ''For goodness' sake, we hope that this new system is going to be quicker and clearer, but we don't think it is.'' The test of time will prove that, but we need to ensure that the system will operate. 
 I say in a non-partisan way that I hope the Minister takes every step to ensure that all guidance is given to local planning authorities and everyone else on exactly how the scheme is going to operate. I hope that there will be a large number of articles in the technical magazines and plenty of Government publicity on the website. I hope that planning officers and everyone else 
 will have more than adequate information at the earliest possible stage, so that they can begin to prepare to implement this very complicated scheme. 
 I do not accept that my new clause is inflexible. There are plenty of opportunities for flexibility, and even if the new clause does not say that it would be perfectly simple to amend it to make it more flexible. I give the Minister notice that I shall encourage my colleagues in another place to table a similar new clause including the added flexibility that he criticises this one for not having. Such a consolidated new clause would be a useful alternative basis for the Government to consider. 
 A consolidation involving doing exactly what the Government want to do, but in a simpler way, would be hugely beneficial to the practitioners, planning officers, consumers—the 500,000 people who make planning applications every year—and those who wish to make objections. The simpler the system, the easier it is for those people to use. They should find the system user friendly. If it becomes too complicated, they will be alienated from the planning system and feel that it is working against them. That will further weaken local democracy and further lower turnout in local elections. 
 I turn to some other criticisms. I have broadly covered the Minister's objections involving the first, second and third disadvantages that he gave. In respect of the third, at column 283, he said: 
''A local planning authority will be able to produce just a single integrated development plan document or a series of documents, depending on local circumstances.''
 Considering the complexity of the system, we found in the Minister's answer a useful and clear explanation of the Government's intention. Even in his explanation, however, all sorts of new terms turned up that we had never heard of before. He referred in column 282 to a ''proposals map'' and in column 283 to an ''integrated development plan''. Let alone all the different terms in the Bill, we now seem to be getting new Government terms by the minute. I just do not know how we are supposed to operate a system when we keep getting new Government terms. 
 The Minister went on to a fourth disadvantage. I thought that he was pretty churlish at this point. I do not want to introduce a bad note, but he said: 
''A fourth disadvantage of the hon. Gentleman's new clause is that it would do less to help a community's businesses and other interested parties participate in planning.''
 That is simply not true. My new clause makes it very clear that a local authority must have regard to the statement of community involvement and specifies how that is to be drawn up. He misrepresented what I had to say there. There is no question of local people being unable to participate in the planning process under my proposals. That is unfair. 
 The Minister then said, at column 284: 
''It is not sensible to include the project timetable in the plan. That would mix up policies and the programme for preparing them. That is not necessary and it is not compatible with the plan-led system''.
 However, the only problem is that the Government do exactly that in clause 14(2)(f). That says that there 
 must be a timetable, and of course there must. Again, I question what he said. 
 The Minister continued: 
''Under our arrangements, the project plan for preparing the local development documents that make up the local development framework and for keeping the local development framework up to date is rightly kept separate, and altered in a way that is sensible.''
 That is exactly what my arrangements do, so I do not know quite what he was getting at there. He then said: 
''However, I put it to the Committee that the disadvantages far outweigh the benefits. How can the plan properly take account of community views if the inspector does not consider written representations''?
 There is a difference when it comes to how I have drawn up my new clause and the Government view. If the inspector has to consider every oral representation, some groups of objectors will use that to create an abuse. There needs to be a safeguard. Of course, the inspector may—and should—wish to hear every oral representation. However, when some form of written statement has been received, there must be a lock-out if an abuse takes place at an independent inspector's hearing. My new clause usefully deals with that. 
 In column 285, the Minister makes perhaps the biggest mis-statement in his whole explanation: 
''It is simply not true to say that our system is complicated''.—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 21 October 2003; c. 282–85.]
 Time will tell whether that is true. I just point out that e = mcŽ2? is not a complicated formula until one starts to examine the detail. For those who do not know, e = mcŽ2? is Einstein's formula for the theory of relativity—it is on the clock tower on the M4, which takes people out of London. It is one of the most complicated formulae in the business, yet it consists of only three digits. 
 Virtually every practitioner I have come across admits that the Government's system is highly complicated. That might not matter provided that it works and gives a simpler, fairer and more transparent planning system, and that the 500,000 consumers who use it every year find that that is so. My great fear is that that will not be the case. We shall return to the subject on Report and it will be discussed again in another place. I have no doubt that their lordships will have a great deal to say about the Bill. A consolidating new clause, set out in the way that I have arranged it, represents a considerable improvement on the Government proposals that it would replace. 
 I pay great tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh, who, in a paragraph in Hansard, neatly summed up what the Government intend to do in principle. However, that is like Einstein's theory of relativity—it is only principles and acronyms. My hon. Friend had some good acronyms for each category of document. This will be Hill's Bill—the Minister's great testimonial. He will be the one who tore up the existing planning system and replaced it wholesale with a new one. Time will tell whether that new system works, but I have a new acronym—CHAOS, which stands for ''Can Hill's Alternative Objectives Succeed?'' I submit that they will not.

Keith Hill: Well, what a note on which to conclude. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his useful employment of his time since Tuesday afternoon. We have had a textual exegesis of my contribution on that occasion and I am sure that we all feel a great deal better for it. However, the Committee should not forget that our debate began on Tuesday afternoon. I want to respond not only to the hon. Member for Cotswold, but to the hon. Members for Chipping Barnet and for Rayleigh. I sense that there is not an appetite in the Committee for a protracted debate. We have spent an hour on the matter so far, so I hope to make my response reasonably succinct.
 The first contribution came from the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green). I welcome the broad support that he extended to our proposals and, in particular, his support for the greater flexibility that we expect the system to bring. I am sorry that it took him nine months to understand the thrust of the new arrangements, although I am sure that that is no reflection on him. I strongly suspect that the arrangements will prove a good deal more accessible in practice—on the ground—than in their inevitably complex expression in legislative form, at least at first flush. 
 Let me also say, in the spirit of hands across the water, that I accept the hon. Gentleman's rebuke on the delay in publishing some draft guidance and regulations. However, we made considerable efforts to let the Committee have as much in draft as was humanly possible. We published PPS11 in part 1 regulations, PPS12 in part 2 regulations, regulations under part 4 and transitional regulations on local plans, but I accept that we can always do better. In broad terms, I am grateful to him for his comments. 
 I turn to the remarks of the hon. Member for Cotswold, who referred to a conciliation safeguard in his new clause. We certainly intend that a local planning authority should reach agreement with the Secretary of State on changes to its local development scheme and documents as an alternative to having to comply with a direction from the Secretary of State. Agreement may be reached before or after the Secretary of State has issued a direction. We, too, prefer an agreement to a direction, and we have tabled amendments to put the scope for that approach beyond doubt. 
 The hon. Gentleman alluded to the remarks of the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet, who also mentioned conciliation and said that new clause 49 was better on it than the Government's proposals. Other than the arguments that I have just made, let me repeat a point that is on the record, which I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will peruse. I firmly believe that our proposals have a better prospect than the present system of achieving consensus locally. The new system will be easy for people to engage with because they will be able to choose what to look at and they will know how their authority will involve them through its statement of community interest. 
 I am grateful to the to the hon. Gentleman for his response in general to my early remarks. I shall not say 
 that he went so far as to support the proposals, but he obviously feels that there is more in them than does the hon. Member for Cotswold, from whom we have heard adamant opposition. The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet said that the debate was of 
''great importance and seriousness. I want to say to the Minister that I have been impressed by the way he has responded, and that, although we must take the decision now, I would want to reflect further on what he has said.''—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 21 October 2003; c. 293.]
 That is an encouraging response. In due course, I shall illustrate the fact that there is at least understanding—great clarity—of our proposals on the Opposition's part , if not agreement.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: In the spirit of bipartisanship, which we seem to be re-achieving, I have reflected deeply for many hours, some of them post-midnight, on what the Minister said. I have no doubt that the Opposition will continue to reflect carefully on his comments and on the contents of the Bill. However, I hope that the merits of the consolidation and simplification in my new clause will be considered before the Bill goes to another place, because the simpler we can make the system, the easier it will be for those who have to operate it.

Keith Hill: I cannot respond in a bipartisan spirit by saying that we are minded to make changes, but we constantly take the contents of our legislation under consideration. I say to the hon. Gentleman what I said to the hon. Member for Ludlow: in practice, the proposals will be accessible. Nobody thinks that the planning system will ever be utterly simple—that is a chimera—but through the proposal the Government are determined to achieve transparency, accessibility and great openness towards the public, who are the people who count at the end of the day. That is the purpose of our commitments on community involvement, and I am sure that there will be further opportunities today to debate it.
 Let me hurry along. The hon. Member for Cotswold said that the Bill gives the Secretary of State complete control of the planning system, but the things that the Secretary of State can or will do are essentially the same as they are now. For example, his powers and duties on regional spatial strategies are modelled on his current role in the procedures for regional planning guidance, and his powers to intervene in the preparation of local development frameworks are modelled on those under current legislation. New powers for the Secretary of State are linked to the introduction of new arrangements such as local development schemes and local development orders. 
 On clause 25, the hon. Gentleman raised the issue of enterprise zones. The clause provides for part 2 to apply to revisions to local development documents in the same way as it applies to the preparation of documents. It also requires an authority to review and, if necessary, revise local development documents as soon as possible after an enterprise zone is designated or an existing enterprise scheme is modified. That is because development documents and enterprise zone schemes cover the same area. The clause enables the efficient revision of local development documents and 
 ensures that such documents do not conflict with enterprise zone schemes.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Before the Minister skates by that point, I am sure that that is the Government's intention, but I repeat that clause 25(5) states that
''the authority must review every local development document in the light of the enterprise zone scheme''.
 That is an unnecessary bureaucratic requirement when an enterprise zone might cover only part of an authority's area.

Keith Hill: But, as the hon. Gentleman knows, there is the potential for interaction even if an enterprise zone covers only part of the area. It seems reasonable that attention should be addressed to the review and possible revision of all elements of the local development plan. Again, we can revert to those matters later.
 The hon. Gentleman asked why the scheme and supplementary planning documents are not subject to independent examination. I attempted to illustrate the answer by using the Middlesbrough local plan as a visual aid.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: It was prepared under the old system.

Keith Hill: Yes, but it shows that progressive authorities are already moving in that direction—we can learn from best practice elsewhere. I used the visual aid of the Middlesbrough local plan, which is an implementation plan, but obviously to little effect. I repeat that the scheme is a project plan that may be changed frequently by, for example, adding new documents. To require examination of the scheme every time that it is amended would remove flexibility and speed, which are essential in good project planning. The document is public, however, and the community can tell the local planning authority what it thinks and what changes it wants. Supplementary planning documents are subsidiary to development plan documents. They give further detail on the policies in the development plan document rather than establishing first principles.
 The hon. Gentleman, not for the first time, made a plea for improving the current system, and I have covered that point at some length. My preceding remarks explained how the Bill addresses that issue, and I do not agree with him. Our predecessors—including those in Conservative Administrations—took numerous steps to try to fix the current system, but the outcomes have only underlined the point that fundamental reform is necessary. 
 The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of limiting appearances before the inspector. Frankly, I am a trifle puzzled by how he reconciles that with his support for the principle in the Green Paper, which is that all parts of the community—individuals, organisations and businesses—must be able to make their voices heard on plans. I find it hard to square that support with the proposal that the inspectorate should see only those written representations seeking to change a development plan document and not those that support the local authority's proposals, and then only if the person making the representation 
 specifically asks for the inspector to see it. It is also hard to square it with the proposal that people making a representation seeking a change should not have the right to appear at the examination. 
 If the inspector sees only those representations that disagree with the authority's proposals, how can he reach a sensible decision on whether to support them? He must see all representations. Surely, we want plans with the greatest possible community support rather than those that upset the fewest people. 
 The hon. Gentleman reverted to his accusation about a plethora of terms in the Bill. I take that allegation with a pinch of salt, as in an earlier contribution he complained about the sudden appearance of ''policy'' in clause 16.

Matthew Green: They do not have any policies.

Keith Hill: The hon. Gentleman says that the explanation for the consternation at the appearance of ''policy'' is that the Conservative party does not have any policies. He ought to know about policies—the Liberal Democrats have plenty, but they just do not add up.
 The hon. Member for Cotswold complained about the appearance of ''policy'' in clause 16, but I must point out to him the fact that it appears in clauses 1 and 37. He asked what a policy is. Clause 16(3) states that a local authority's 
''local development documents must . . . set out the authority's policies (however expressed) relating to the development and use of land in their area.''
 Clause 1(2) states that the regional spatial strategy sets out 
''the Secretary of State's policies (however expressed) in relation to the development and use of land within the region.''
 Clause 37(5) explains what happens if two policies contained in the development plan documents and the regional spatial strategy conflict, providing for the most recent to prevail. 
 The hon. Gentleman also asserted that ''proposals map'' is a new term. It is not; it was in the Government's response to the Select Committee report on the Green Paper published in July 2002. I have identified the priority issues raised by him. He raised many other matters and we will carefully examine the Hansard record of them. I hope that he feels that I have dealt with his major concerns in reasonable detail. 
 I turn to the contribution of the hon. Member for Rayleigh, who is a new Member. In my previous incarnation as deputy Chief Whip, I was able to observe his performance as a rapidly promoted Opposition Whip. He earned my respect in that capacity and I am sure that I speak for the whole Committee when I say that he has earned a little place in our hearts as well. 
 The hon. Gentleman distinguished himself in the previous sitting—his contribution was a positive tour de force and very reassuring—which was his introduction to the Government's new planning 
 proposals, of which he demonstrated a perfect understanding, with the benefit, I dare say, of my modest exposition. The last thing that I would want to suggest is that if he can understand our proposals, anyone can. On the contrary, to borrow from his talent for initials, Rayleigh rules OK. With that, I invite the hon. Member for Cotswold to withdraw the motion.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: One thing that we have learned from the Committee is that we have a different Planning Minister from the one before. His predecessor would have dismissed the new clause in a few short sentences. Whether or not we agree with what the Minister says, the Committee has benefited from his approach. I disagree with a lot of what he says, but he has been incredibly courteous and he and his civil servants have devoted a great deal of time to the matter. I am sure that we shall return to it during later consideration of the Bill, so at this stage it is appropriate that I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
 Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New clause 50 - Development of a listed building or

'(1) This section applies where development takes place, without consent, to a relevant structure. 
 [R] Registered interest declared. 
 (2) In this section— 
 (a) ''relevant structure'' means a building or other structure which is subject to conservation area consent or a listed building; 
 (b) ''development'' means (in the judgement of the local planning authority) destruction or substantial damages; 
 (c) ''exceptional circumstances'' means if an alternative planning application is approved within 6 months; 
 (d) ''specified period'' means a period, not exceeding three years, prescribed by the local planning authority. 
 (3) The local planning authority shall, save in exceptional circumstances, require that the owner restore the relevant structure within a specified period to its state before the development took place. 
 (4) If the requirement in subsection (3) is not met, the local planning authority may make arrangements to do so at the expense of the owner.'.—[Mr. Andrew Turner.]
 Brought up, and read the First time.

Andrew Turner: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
 I offer a warm welcome to you this morning, Mr. Pike. I am pleased to be back in the Committee, and I apologise for my absence on Tuesday afternoon. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet for moving two new clauses in my absence. 
 According to its title, new clause 50 deals with development of a listed building or structure in a conservation area. In fact, that is a polite way of saying that it deals with the destruction of listed buildings and structures in conservation areas. The new clause would enable local planning authorities to require the restoration or reconstruction of a structure 
 that is protected because it is in a conservation area or because it requires listed building consent. If the developer—I use that word because it is the legal term for someone who knocks down a listed building—fails to restore the building, the new clause would enable the local authority to do so. 
 I am sure that the Committee is aware that English Heritage maintains a list of listed buildings at risk. I accept that the problem is not only developers; sometimes local planning authorities that allow listed buildings to fall into disrepair. The regional director of the south-east region drew my attention to the fact that one of the listed buildings at risk in my constituency is Northwood house, which he describes as 
''A long-standing case of partial neglect by the Isle of Wight Council . . . now partly ameliorated by repairs''.
 I do not claim for a moment that local authorities are perfect in this respect, but they do have a locus to maintain their own list of listed buildings and other structures in conservation areas that are at risk. They need to be confident that they can act to have such buildings restored if damage is caused to them, either wilfully or through neglect. I shall give some examples. 
 The new clause is designed to test and strengthen the existing law. There is insufficient guarantee that listed buildings and structures in conservation areas—I hope the Minister will be happy if I do not keep repeating that—will be protected. Too many buildings of that sort suffer from curious accidents at a time when they lie in the way of potential development. I would like to give two examples of that drawn from my constituency. Before I started speaking, I should have declared an interest because I am an owner of a listed building, but not one of those to which I refer elsewhere in my remarks. 
 In the Cowes high street conservation area there is a grade 2 listed pub, the Three Crowns. Sadly, it was demolished by a bulldozer under the control of a developer who was planning to turn it into a jazz bar. I am pleased to say that the magistrates found him guilty of an offence under listed buildings legislation and imposed a fine of £25,000, which I believe is close to the maximum. I congratulate them on that. However, I regret to say that the building has not been rebuilt, and only the fa¢ade remains. 
 A second example concerns Merrie Gardens farm. I confess that when I heard that there was a farm called Merrie Gardens, I thought that it came out of ''The Archers'', but it is a real building, and a quite historic one. A stone and thatched mediaeval building at Lake, it was gutted by fire, and there is no sign that it is to be reconstructed. All the adjoining premises have a commercial or industrial use. It is not difficult to draw the conclusion that the fire may not have been entirely an act of God. 
 The new clause defines a relevant structure as 
''a building or other structure which is subject to conservation area consent or a listed building''.
 It defines development, and states clearly that what is meant is 
''(in the judgement of the local planning authority) destruction or substantial damages''.
 It states: 
''The local planning authority shall, save in exceptional circumstances, require that the owner restore the relevant structure within a specified period to its state before the development took place.''
 Exceptional circumstances means 
''if an alternative planning application is approved within 6 months''.
 The new clause would allow the local planning authority to define the specified period, which should not exceed three years. Subsection (4) would give the local planning authority the power, if the owner did not restore the building, to make arrangements to restore it at his expense. 
 I hope that the new clause would be a powerful tool to enable local authorities to ensure that listed buildings are neither wantonly neglected nor wantonly destroyed. It is one thing for an owner to face a fine of £25,000, but if the development value of a site significantly exceeds the likely maximum fine—in many cases it exceeds that sum by a multiple of 10—there is precious little disincentive to allow buildings to fall into disuse, neglect or destruction.

Matthew Green: I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight on his new clause. He has identified a pertinent point about something that is a problem in many parts of the country. However, although I agree with him on the intention, there could be problems with implementation of the provision. I can think of two. One is that some listed structures are very old indeed, and are built using construction techniques that would be difficult to replicate in a modern environment. If such a building were to be destroyed deliberately, perhaps with a bulldozer, it would be extremely difficult to restore it to what it was. As my degree is in mediaeval studies, I am concerned about the danger of ending up with a replica that does not match up to the original.
 My other concern is that, in contrast to the law on cars, under which motorists must have insurance, buildings insurance is not compulsory. If, for example, an elderly couple with no insurance or insufficient insurance allowed a listed building to burn down, through neglect rather than deliberate action, the new clause would force them to rebuild it at great expense, even though they had no money to do so. Presumably, that would force them to seek mortgages, which they might not be able to obtain. I foresee see practical difficulties with that. 
 I am not trying to dent the hon. Gentleman's enthusiasm for dealing with the problem. It needs to be dealt with, perhaps by increasing the maximum fine to above £25,000. If people can make tenfold profits, then let us increase the fine tenfold and relate it to the potential redevelopment value of the site. If the potential for profit were removed, the likelihood of people doing such things would be significantly reduced, although that would not deal with the issue of buildings falling down due to neglect. This is a difficult area, and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having a stab at dealing with it.

Yvette Cooper: New
 clause 50 would require a local planning authority to require an owner to restore a listed building or other structure in a conservation area that has been destroyed or substantially damaged without consent. It would also allow the local planning authority to make arrangements to restore the building or structure at the owner's expense when the owner has failed to do so.
 We should recognise that the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 contains enforcement powers for situations in which unauthorised work has been carried out on a listed building. The local planning authority may serve an enforcement notice. Section 42 enables a local authority to undertake the work required by the notice and to recover the expenses incurred from the owner. Section 74(3) of the Act provides the same powers regarding the demolition of unlisted buildings in conservation areas. The new clause would go further than that by imposing a duty on the local planning authority to take action, except in those circumstances defined in the clause. It would remove the local planning authority's discretion. 
 The hon. Member for Isle of Wight raised some important points, but it is undesirable to try to solve such problems by removing local authorities' discretion. Local authorities have the primary responsibility for taking whatever action may be necessary in the public interest. They need to tailor their approach to fit the circumstances of each case, whatever the breach of planning control might be. They are accountable to their local councillors and local communities for their decisions. 
 Imposing on local authorities a duty always to take restorative action could bring perverse consequences. For example, if the case had been made before the works took place, a local authority might have been prepared to consent to the demolition of a listed building or a building in a conservation area. Restoration may well be a perverse course of action in a case involving a building in a regeneration area where there are important regeneration considerations, or where a building needs to be demolished for health and safety reasons but permission was not sought in advance. In those circumstances, asking people to apply for retrospective planning permission would involve needless bureaucracy. 
 The hon. Members for Isle of Wight and for Ludlow both spoke about fines, which I had not previously considered. I shall be happy to consider that matter. However, the new clause would not help to achieve the aims of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight because of the potential perverse effects of taking away local authorities' discretion, and of forcing them to perform restoration work that might not be desirable or advisable in the circumstances. I therefore ask him to withdraw his new clause.

Andrew Turner: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ludlow for drawing attention to the level of fines that may be imposed, and to the Minister for listening to his point.
 On reflection, I accept the Minister's point that it may be perverse to take away local authorities' discretion through subsection (3), although I was not proposing to take away any discretion through subsection (4). Will the Minister consider permitting the courts to levy a fine that substantially outweighs any planning gain that may be obtained by the destruction of the building? I am grateful to her for agreeing to look at that, and I shall be interested to see what proposals she makes. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. 
 Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New clause 51 - Chief planning officer

'(1) A local planning authority's duties under the Local Government Act 1972 with respect to the appointment of officers shall (without prejudice to the generality of the provisions of that Act) include the duty of appointing a fit person to be the chief planning officer of the authority, whether or not that person is described as chief planning officer. 
 (2) The chief planning officer shall have overall senior management responsibility for the functions set out in section 38.'.—[Mr. Clifton-Brown.]
 Brought up, and read the First time.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The new clause concerns the employment and role of chief planning officers, which it will be useful to spend a few minutes discussing. The Town and Country Planning Association has given us a briefing, and I am grateful to it for helping us to draw up the new clause. It tells us:
''Chief Education Officers, Directors of Social Services, Chief Treasurers and Chief Solicitors (described as 'Proper' officers) all benefit from statutory recognition''.
 The wording of the new clause is based on the part of the Education Act 1996 that deals with the statutory recognition of chief education officers. 
 We would all agree that chief planning officers need to be of the highest calibre and sensitivity to deliver the future vision of their authority and local community. The Town and Country Planning Association continues: 
''Their delegated authority can also be great; for example the granting or refusing of planning permission can create or remove millions of pounds of land value at the stroke of a pen.''
 Agricultural land worth a few thousand pounds an acre can often be turned into development land worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds, so the decisions of planning officers and their recommendations to their committees can be hugely important, not only to the people developing the land but to the community and surrounding area. One big development can shape the whole future of a town or city. 
 The new clause would give the officer responsible for planning statutory recognition similar to that of other local authority chief officers. It would not prevent local authorities from combining the post with others, nor would it prevent them from using a variety of job titles to suit local wishes. The Town and Country Planning Association comments: 
''Unless planners are given the status and ambition they need candidates of calibre will not come forward.''
 That is a serious and worrying problem, given the changes that the Government are making. If I were currently a planning officer in a county council, whose strategic role was being diminished by the Bill, and I received an offer from the private sector, I would be very tempted to move, particularly as my future would be so uncertain. 
 That is a problem at the moment. There are not enough trained planning officers in this country. The competition from the private sector for good ones is huge. Some are paid vast sums. I was with some big developers yesterday, and some of their principal planners are paid a very great deal of money indeed. 
 This is not only about money, it is about statutory status: status in the council and among councillors, and status with the general public. We need to ensure that planning officers are given that status, that they are paid properly, that we have more trained planning officers, and that there is proper career progression and development. All those are lacking at present. I hope that the Minister will give the matter serious consideration. My concern is not only with chief planning officers, but with the number of planning officers in general. Most authorities are struggling even now to carry out all their planning functions. With all the additional functions that the Bill gives them, I do not see how they will be able to do that unless a large number of extra people are recruited.

Alan Whitehead: I am not entirely sure whether the new clause exactly fits the Bill, but I support the important principle that planning authorities should recognise the status and role of planning officers. Substantial changes have occurred in recent years in how local authorities and planning authorities see their roles. They have removed the silos of professional status within local authorities.
 A few years ago there used to be a chief planning officer, a valuer, a chief education officer, an officer with responsibility for social services, a chief legal officer and so on. Even in a district authority, there would be 13 or 14 chief officers sitting round the table with their different professional hats on. As the function of local authorities changed, those chief officers' roles were, quite rightly in my view, often subsumed in super-departments Officers in local authorities were grouped around the table as officers in charge of an area of concern rather than on the basis of their professional qualifications or backgrounds, which led to a great improvement in how they worked. 
 However, in that development, the sense that there were particular areas that needed a focus of concern within local authorities was lost. At the same time, local authorities changed from taking a reactive role to adopting a proactive role on many planning matters. That is particularly important because clause 38 enjoins planning authorities to concern themselves with sustainable development, which requires a proactive concern for the whole body of activity in a local authority rather than simply ticking off 
 particular planning applications as they come through. Indeed, the widely welcomed Government communities plan reflects the imperative for proactive planning on the part of local authorities across the country. 
 The movement towards more proactive planning is happening at the same time as the continuing reorganisation of arrangements for executive authorities—and, possibly, elected mayors—in local government. The role of chief officers has been further thrown into generality. Those two forces are moving in opposite directions.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, because his case is intelligent and cogent. Does he agree that there is consensus in Committee not only on the proactive approach, which is welcome, but on greater community involvement in the planning process? Community involvement is good, but it will inevitably take up the time of planning officers, which will put further pressure on their work loads.

Alan Whitehead: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The proactive planning process involves more than making various connections in the local authority planning process that may not have been made previously. Connections must also be made with a variety of stakeholders in the planning process, who are outside the authority, within the community. That was not the common sense of planning in years gone by.
 Planning now plays a number of roles in local government and planning authorities, although there is also a decreased focus on that activity. That is the reason why the principle of recognising the role of chief planning officer—whether or not that person goes by that exact title—is important. As the hon. Member for Cotswold has pointed out, there is such recognition in a number of other areas, where specific posts form the statutory basis on which other officers work. 
 I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister to consider accepting the new clause, and to take on board the notion that this recognition of status in local authorities is increasingly important, especially given the admirable changes to the planning process made by the Bill and the rolling changes that he has just explained to the Committee. If he does so, that will underline the importance of planning officers in that process and in the wider process of ensuring that planning becomes part of the fabric of local authorities, not the part of the silo, as it was for some people in years past.

Matthew Green: I offer general support, although I am worried by the general implications of doing so. I hope that my comments will help the situation, rather than create a dogmatic position. I have great sympathy for the idea of ensuring that there is no decline in the status of planning departments. However, I am concerned about the financial effect on authorities of making it a statutory requirement to have a chief planning officer. I know, for example, that the Government are publishing a children's Green Paper, which means that there will have to be a director for children's services.
 The trend is to keep telling councils that they must have one of these and one of those. The danger is that a council's ability to manage its staffing arrangements, especially at the highest paid levels, becomes very difficult. Each of the five borough and district councils in Shropshire, for example, has a different system. Some have a director of planning, while others have a head of development control who works for a director of operational services, because they have needed to group several areas together for financial reasons. My concern is that this may force some councils into having a director of planning again. A few years ago, South Shropshire had to take that step for financial reasons.

Andrew Turner: The hon. Gentleman makes a cogent point. Obviously, it is best to leave such decisions to local authorities—but does he believe that a local authority would be wiser to share the appointment of a director of planning with an adjoining local authority, to obtain a higher calibre of advice than it might have if it subordinated him to someone with the ghastly title of ''director of operational services''?

Matthew Green: I have some sympathy for that idea. South Shropshire was slightly fortunate because when it abolished the post of director of planning, the director of planning applied for the lower, and lower paid, post of head of development control. He is still there, so the council still has in post a very experienced person, who did not want to move from the delights of south Shropshire—for which I do not blame him. However, it could have ended up having to recruit someone with less experience.
 The solution lies almost in the other direction. If the Government were to allow us to have local government change in Shropshire so that we could get rid of the districts and boroughs and have a unitary Shropshire, for which there is cross-party support, we could get round the financial constraints. Shropshire would then have one director of planning, who would have very high status. However, I am concerned that the new clause could impose financial constraints on district councils, especially small ones, while we still have them. None the less, I broadly support its aims, because there has been a tendency to downgrade planning in some areas. One could argue that that had happened in South Shropshire. 
 Fortunately, the director of operational services gives a free-ranging role to the head of development control in South Shropshire, and that works well, but I can see that such an arrangement might not always work. Therefore, although I support the principle, I think that we need to look through the practicalities to see whether it is achievable, or whether other changes to local government are needed to make it achievable. Perhaps when, in the Government's utopian vision of local government, there are unitary authorities throughout the country, the financial constraints will not be there—but in the interim, it might cause some problems.

Keith Hill: As usual, we have had a thoughtful exchange. One of the things on which I reflect during Standing Committee proceedings is the fact that one ends up with an almost intimate knowledge of the constituencies of Opposition Members, as they draw on their constituency experiences to illustrate their cases. I feel that I could walk around blindfolded in either the Isle of Wight or Ludlow, not that I would want to do that in either, since both are very beautiful localities with which I am already familiar. We have not heard as much as we might have looked forward to hearing about the Cotswolds—

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Give me time.

Keith Hill: I pay proper tribute to the hon. Member for Cotswold, who really has focused on the substance of the matters before us.
 I particularly welcome the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) and his enthusiastic support for the Bill's provisions. One might say that, as a Government Member, he is duty-bound to express such support, but my hon. Friend is a great expert in these matters and he knows what he is talking about, so his wholehearted backing for our proposals is encouraging. I absolutely agree with him about the need for planners to adopt a proactive role, and I welcome the Opposition's support for that approach. The purpose of planning is to promote sustainable development, not to find elegant and, often, protracted ways of saying no, so we proceed with a degree of consensus. 
 I have some sympathy with the aims of the new clause, but I cannot agree to the proposal. While a strong, effective and efficient planning function is important to local businesses and local communities, we do not need to give statutory protection to chief planning officers to deal with the problems that Members have identified. 
 Two separate strands of thinking on the issue have emerged during the debate. First, let me explain our thoughts on the position of planning officers who find their professional advice being disregarded or questioned. Currently, only three posts are covered by the additional statutory protection under the Local Authorities (Standing Orders) (England) Regulations 2001 made under local government legislation. They are the chief executive, the chief finance officer and the monitoring officer, whose role is to keep the council within vires and propriety guidance. Those three officers are seen as particularly vulnerable and potentially exposed to political pressures when carrying out their functions of keeping the authority on the proper and legal course. 
 There might be circumstances in which chief planning officers are put under pressure to make particular recommendations either on planning applications or in relation to the content of local development documents—from applicants, third parties or members of the authority—but there are already adequate safeguards against that. For example, the new national code of conduct, which tackles questions of ethics throughout local 
 government, gives the officer in such circumstances the opportunity to make a complaint to the Standards Board for England.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I want to probe what the Minister has said. It seems that the chief planning officer is more likely to be under political pressure than either the chief executive or the standards officer, because of the amount of money involved. That would be the case in a small authority such as mine in particular, where—if there were a major application from a major organisation with a very deep pocket and it decided to fight a planning refusal—the potential cost to the authority, as a percentage of budget, might be huge. Therefore, the recommendations that a chief planning officer makes could have major financial consequences, particularly for a small authority.

Keith Hill: That seems to me to be a broad political pressure, not the personal pressures that are being identified and used to justify the new clause. The hon. Gentleman does not imply that there would be pressure of a highly personal or even pecuniary nature brought to bear by elected members of the authority.
 The hon. Gentleman's example relates to broader issues in the public domain. A major development, such as he characterises, would be well known to the public and would not be susceptible to the individual pressures from which other local government regulations seek to offer protection. I do not wholly agree with his point. 
 Our prospectus, ''Training in Planning for Councillors'', which was issued in 1999, included the need for proper training for members on issues relating to propriety as well as the principles and policies of the planning system. Our agenda for culture change considers afresh whether anything else is needed to guide members on planning. 
 Planning legislation provides for circumstances in which a possibly perverse decision is being, or is about to be, made by a local planning authority. Under part 2, the Secretary of State has the power to direct modification of a local development document and to direct that a development plan document be submitted to him for his approval. He also has powers under the principal Act to call in a planning application at any time before it is determined. Similarly, he has other reserve powers of, for example, modification, revocation and discontinuance action. Finally, an applicant who has an application refused or granted subject to conditions can appeal to the Secretary of State against the refusal or the imposition of the conditions. 
 I turn to the issue of strengthening the planning profession more generally, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am sorry to pursue the point. This may seem perverse, but I want to try one more time.
 The Minister says that an applicant has a final right of appeal to an independent inspector appointed by the Secretary of State, as enshrined in all planning legislation. That very act of appeal provides an 
 inherent threat to any authority that turns down an application. An authority knows that if a commercial organisation with a deep pocket appeals and loses, and costs are awarded against it, that will require a significant financial outlay. In those circumstances, a chief planning officer would come under real pressure not only from fellow officers—particularly the finance officer—but from other members of the authority.

Keith Hill: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. One is tempted to say that, rightly or wrongly, that is the way of the world and the nature of things. One is also tempted to say that the pressure he describes would not be frequently experienced. The pressure is in the public domain and is totally transparent. It seems to me that regulation seeks to protect the three officers, identified as being in statutory positions, from internal pressures.
 The case suggested by the hon. Gentleman envisages the possibility of internal pressures, but they will be no more than the pressures of debate that are bound to occur in an authority contemplating a major application that, if rejected, may entail large costs. However, such debates will occur in the public domain and will undoubtedly be the subject of exchanges in full committee and council meetings. I contend that there will be a degree of transparency. 
Mr. Clifton-Brown rose—

Keith Hill: The hon. Gentleman comes back again.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I partially agree with the Minister. Of course, a lot of it will be in the public domain, but before the planning committee considers a controversial application, planning officers will have to make a recommendation on the development, and that will not be in the public domain. He knows that if a major application goes to appeal, the planning officer's recommendation can come under the minutest scrutiny. That is why the chief planning officer needs protection.

Keith Hill: The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to learn that inspiration has winged its way to me during our exchanges. Let me try this line: the chief planning officer is more likely to be under political pressure on the ground that an appeal to the Secretary of State can be costly. Based on advice, I can say that the costs of appealing to the Secretary of State are borne by each party, unless one of the parties has acted unreasonably. Therefore, if the actions of the planning authority are reasonable, costs are unlikely to be awarded against it.
 That serious and interesting observation goes at least some way to undermining the strength of the hon. Gentleman's argument on the nature of the costs. Does he wish to come back on that?

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I was not going to come back, because I do not want to prolong our debate, but, as the Minister has invited me to do so, I shall.
 In an ideal world, where everything is black and white, what the Minister said would be 100 per cent. true. The problem is that big commercial cases are not black and white; they are grey. That is the purpose of allowing appeals. When a planning officer makes a recommendation on a controversial application that 
 may or may not conform entirely to the plan, he cannot be sure on which side an inspector will come down when making his decision. That is why the officer's professionalism and judgment are absolutely on the line in controversial cases, particularly those that go to appeal. That is why chief planning officers need such protection. They undertake important and delicate decisions on behalf of the community.

Keith Hill: I am sure that that is correct. I shall come, in due course, to the influence that costs may have on such decisions.

Matthew Green: I intervene to help the hon. Member for Cotswold. A planning officer might come under the most severe internal pressure if the local authority has put forward an application. If the plan had been dreamed up by the chief executive and senior executive councillors, the head of development control would be under pressure to write a good report—I said earlier that the matter should not involve one and the same person, as once happened in one of my local authorities—and the pressure, particularly on junior officers, could be strong. Senior officers and councillors would be pushing the policy, and the officers would in effect be going against council policy if they were to give reasons why it should not be approved.
 I can foresee situations in which there is greater internal pressure, but I return to my earlier caveat about cost.

Keith Hill: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that insight. Perhaps I could now turn to the other strand in our debate—the need to strengthen the planning profession more generally. As part of our planning reform agenda, of which the Bill is an integral part, we have made it clear that we need to change the profile of planning, and change its culture, so that it is better suited to our objectives. We have agreed that we want a proactive, transparent and open system.
 A key issue for culture change is mainstreaming planning, by which I mean putting planning at the heart of local policy making, in the broadest sense, and of local governance. The Bill, and the new planning policy statement 1, ''Planning Policy and Principles'' will together set out a new vision. The Bill will do that through the links that it will establish between planning and community strategies and sustainable development generally, among other things. We will consult shortly on a draft of the new PPS1. 
 We are working with key partners in local government—leaders, chief executives, members and officers—to build a consensus around some of the key issues. The issues that we have been talking about are skills, vision and raising the profile. I have already mentioned member training. Sir John Egan is looking at skills more generally and the Royal Town Planning Institute has published its education commission's report. Those things, and a host of other initiatives, are aimed at pulling the profession in the right direction, and into the right shape. 
 On Tuesday I told the Committee about a little meeting that took place on Monday, when I met representatives of three authorities—Middlesbrough, Wychavon and North Wiltshire—which had all hugely improved their planning performance. If I may say so, that meeting was in its own modest way a little accolade for planners' success. It also sent a message to planners about how important the Government consider them to be, and our wish to reward them with repute and resources. 
 That brings me to the subject of resources. Another way in which the Government have been playing their part is through the adequate resourcing of the service. By reducing the stresses in the system, and building extra capacity in it to achieve our objectives, we hope to build a stronger profession; we want to attract new and dynamic people into it in the first place, and to bring them back in if they have drifted to work in other related subject areas such as regeneration—or, indeed, to working for big developers, such as those that the hon. Member for Cotswold was with yesterday evening. I was with the Town and Country Planning Association myself—I do not know what that says about our different approaches. 
 Our main contribution to dealing with this matter has been the planning delivery grant, but I want the Committee to note that we are also looking at charges and fees under the amended provisions introduced by clause 47. The new grant is worth £350 million between 2003 and 2006. Fifty million pounds was allocated to authorities this year on the basis of their development control performance, and we have consulted on the broad terms under which we will release £130 million in 2004–05. 
 The terms for next year will include the policy-making function as well as the handling of planning applications. In that context I should mention the costs of appeal; we of course accept the need for proper resources. In the light of the £350 million in the planning delivery grant, and the fees review, appeals are by no means the threat that the hon. Member for Cotswold has suggested. 
 It is early days in the life of the planning delivery grant, but we are already doing some research into its impact. Most of what we have heard informally is encouraging. Although the grant is not ring-fenced for the planning service, we believe that a very high proportion of it is being spent on planning. Authorities think that the grant will improve their performance and assist them in building capacity to deliver quality services in a timely way. 
 We hear that some educational institutions have found their planning courses heavily subscribed, as planning authorities use their grant to give their staff better skills to do the job. That is seriously good news. Although that is encouraging, our research will have to touch on the key principles on which the grant is founded. We have designed it to produce an incentive for better performance by making it clear that we will only give more grant to authorities if their performance continues to improve. 
 We do not accept the need for the new clause; there are adequate safeguards for individual planning 
 officers who may feel that their professional advice is being ignored. We have put in place a wide-ranging culture change initiative supported by extra resources for planning authorities to build a strong profession capable of delivering to the high standards that we expect. In the light of those observations, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree to withdraw the new clause.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: This has been an important and useful debate; we have covered a lot of interesting areas. I would have liked the opportunity to probe the Minister further on the planning grant, and whether it is going to the regions or the local authorities, but this is not the place for that. There are a lot of things in the new clause to which we need to return; we shall find ways of returning to them, but now is not the time. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
 Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New clause 52 - Planning: Retrospective Applications

No. NC52, to move the following Clause:— 
 'In section 73A (Planning permission for development already carried out) of the principal Act after subsection (2) there is inserted— 
 ''(2A) An application for planning permission made to a local planning authority under subsection (1) shall be assigned as a retrospective application. 
 (2B) In considering a retrospective application the local planning authority shall— 
 (a) consider the application as if work on it had not begun; 
 (b) have no regard to any financial loss involved to the developers or others should the application not be approved. 
 (2C) If planning permission is not granted the local planning authority may require that the site be restored so far as practicable to the state that it was in before development commenced. 
 (2D) In determining any appeal from a refusal to grant planning permission in respect of a retrospective application, the Secretary of State shall be bound by subsections (2A) and (2B) above.''.'.—[Mr. Andrew Turner.]
 Brought up, and read the First time.

Andrew Turner: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
 There are few issues that more irritate and concern local residents than the belief that if one builds something, one will get permission afterwards. That view is not shared by people who build something and apply for permission afterwards, but it is a widespread perception that planning authorities seldom or never refuse retrospective planning permission. 
 I am sorry that I cannot give the Minister more detailed information about my constituency now; I am sure that it would encourage him to walk blindfold—or not blindfold, even—round the Isle of Wight. In my constituency we suffer a regular flow of retrospective applications. So much so, that I have come under some pressure—I would not be surprised if other hon. Members have, too—to make development without permission against the law. Some people wish us to use the Bill as an opportunity to make it illegal to develop land without planning permission. I do not know whether the Minister has come under such pressure, 
 but I receive a regular flow of letters from constituents asking why that is legal. 
 We have to adjust the balance of perception in the public mind, without going so far as to make it illegal to develop without permission. I have therefore drafted a proposal that would strengthen the power of the local authority, and planning officers, and enable them to say, ''The law says that we do not have to worry about the cost to the developer of remedying or demolishing a development that has taken place without permission.'' 
 Some developers overstep the mark. During an earlier sitting I gave the example of Persimmon Homes' development at Carisbrooke Park. That development has been through at least 26 different applications, which have changed the layout, the size of the buildings, the heights of the buildings, and in some cases the datum ground level. It has been made almost impossible for members of the public to keep track of the applications, or find out whether the developer is developing in line with the permissions given. Furthermore, many of those applications have been retrospective. 
 If a major developer such as Persimmon Homes is incapable of developing without putting in retrospective applications, I wonder what defences planning authorities and members of the public have. I suspect that developers do that on purpose. They use computers to find the layout that would achieve the maximum possible density—that is in line with Government policy, and I do not blame them for doing it—but then the people who are laying the foundations, or putting bricks and mortar on top of the foundations, gently shift an inch or two, or a foot or two, always towards the end where the development started, so there will be a slightly bigger space at the end of the development, in which a few more houses or units can be accommodated. 
 For example, a constituent of mine who lives in a bungalow in West Mill road in Carisbrooke found out that a wall would be going up at the foot of his garden—a blank wall, so there was no question of overlooking. Having looked at the plans, he had thought that the wall would be behind the garage adjoining the next bungalow, but because the developer had shifted all the buildings on the site to the west, the blank wall also miraculously moved to the west and ended up at the foot of his garden. Members of the public are enormously irritated when the planning committee, or sometimes the planning officers, feel that they are marginal and have no power to reject amended applications. Although it may not be the law, as members of the public see the situation, the cost of demolishing the house that has been built may seem excessive in relation to both the benefit to the individual and the planning improvement of the area. 
 Another example is an application for motocross at Arreton Cross in my constituency, where the works were begun on agricultural land before the application was lodged. The planners advised that an application was necessary, yet the works continued after it was lodged and before the planning committee determined it. Again, the people in the village of Arreton feared 
 that the planners had given the nod to the application. They also feared that the works necessary for motocross to take place on agricultural land—bulldozing the land, creating ramps, bumps, dips and hollows, and in some cases significantly changing the morphology of the area—were impossible to reverse, so that the planners therefore had little choice. 
 The purpose of the new clause is, first, to describe what a retrospective application is, which is detailed in proposed new subsection (2A)—I do not know why I used the phrase, ''be assigned as'', instead of, ''be designated as'', which is what I meant. Secondly, proposed new subsection (2B) makes it clear that the planning committee would be obliged to 
''consider the application as if work on it had not begun,''
 and, 
''have no regard to any financial loss involved''.
 The Minister might regard proposed new subsection (2C) as slightly more controversial, because it would allow the planning authority to 
''require that the site be restored''.
 However, that is only a permissive power, not a duty, for the local authority. The provisions would also allow the Secretary of State to do the same if an appeal for permission were made to him. 
 That is a sufficiently clear introduction to the new clause. The problem is the perception of, and public confidence in, the planning system, rather than the need for a change in the law to establish a different procedure. It is important that the public have confidence in the planning system, and it is particularly important that members of planning committees can see the words that give them a power, and understand that they have that power when they perform their difficult functions.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I apologise to you, Mr. Pike, and to the Committee, for not being present when my hon. Friend started to introduce the new clause. Some of us were outside discussing matters to do with the Committee through the usual channels.
 My hon. Friend's new clause would strengthen the expectation that retrospective planning applications would normally be refused. On Tuesday, the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) stated: 
''The success rate for retrospective applications is slightly lower at 85 per cent. than that of 88 per cent. for applications submitted before the development has taken place.''
 I replied that 
''an 85 per cent. success rate for something that is otherwise unlawful seems to me to be a very high percentage.''—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 21 October 2003; c. 247.]
 We should move towards a situation in which retrospective planning applications are not automatically granted; in fact, the expectation should be that they would not be granted. In the Cotswolds and elsewhere, canny developers carry out developments that they know perfectly well would 
 not get planning permission, and once they are built, the planning committee is more sympathetic because the development exists and it would be difficult to take it down. 
 I give as an example the very first constituency case with which I dealt. A constituent had built an entire house without having the materials approved by the local planning authority, which was a condition of the planning application. I supported the local authority in telling him that he had to pull the house down. He did so, and rebuilt it with proper Cotswold stone, as had been required. 
 Legislation to that effect should be on the statute book. Local planning authorities should get tougher with people who carry out unauthorised developments. Apart from anything else, there would be less need for retrospective planning applications, because people would not carry out such developments if they knew that sanctions existed that could be enforced by the local planning authority. I have a great deal of sympathy with the new clause, and hope that the Minister will, too.

Yvette Cooper: The new clause would require local planning authorities and the Secretary of State to consider retrospective planning applications as if the development had not been undertaken, and to take no account at all of any of the circumstances arising from the fact that it had, including financial consequences to the developer, the home owner or anyone else.
 I have a great deal of sympathy for the sentiment behind the new clause. Clearly, the planning system must be fair. It must not unfairly reward people or developers who play the system—so I have considered the new clause very carefully. I understand the points that hon. Members have made, but I do not believe that it would be advisable to legislate in that way. 
 The new clause would require local planning authorities and the Secretary of State to ignore material considerations. That would be contrary to section 70 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which requires regard to be had to 
''the development plan, so far as material to the application, and to any other material considerations.''
 It also would be contrary to the principles of administrative law, which require a decision maker to have regard to all relevant matters. In other words, the new clause would not allow the Secretary of State or local planning authorities to take account in any way of the practical or personal circumstances that might arise. 
 Hon. Members may argue that the Secretary of State and local planning authorities should not take account of such circumstances. After all, those circumstances would not have existed if there had been a prior planning permission application. There may be many cases in which, for reasons similar to those outlined by hon. Members, I would agree that personal and practical circumstances should not be given particular weight in the decision. Developers might be playing the system, or there might be other circumstances. 
 It causes considerable difficulty, however, to argue that it should never be possible to take account of personal circumstances connected with the development. The ability to take into account those material circumstances allows decisions to be proportionate. For example, telling someone who has nowhere else to go to knock down their home because it was built half a metre higher than planning permission allowed, when they could have used permitted development rights to do the same work later on anyway, would be considered disproportionate. 
 I recognise what hon. Members are trying to achieve. All communities would feel that people who undertake unauthorised development should not thereby be placed in a more favourable position than those who seek planning permission in advance. They should be made aware that there are obstacles and dangers involved in developing first and seeking permission later. 
 I set out the figures in discussions of earlier clauses. The success rate of 85 per cent. for retrospective applications is, as the hon. Member for Cotswold said, slightly lower than the success rate of 88 per cent. for applications submitted before the development has taken place. For major developments, the success rate for retrospective applications drops to 76 per cent. It is also worth taking into account the fact that retrospective planning applications make up just over 3 per cent. of the total number of applications processed. 
 We must resist the new clause for the reasons that I explained in relation to the material circumstances. However, I would like to consider retrospective planning applications—the 3 per cent.—further as part of our work on the enforcement review. I want to consider the nature of the problem and how big it is. There will be cases in which applications are retrospective because somebody simply did not realise that they needed planning permission, where the development is perfectly sensible, and planning permission would have been given normally—and it is right that it should still be given. 
 It is also right to encourage retrospective planning applications to be made. Once a retrospective application is made, it allows local authorities to impose conditions on the development and brings it within the planning system. If someone says, ''Well, we're not even going to bother putting in a retrospective planning permission application,'' there are no restrictions, and the only alternative is for local planning authorities to serve enforcement notices and go down the enforcement route in an attempt to argue at appeal that conditions ought to be imposed. That route can be far more time-consuming and costly to the local authority than simply inviting a retrospective application. We do not therefore want to discourage retrospective planning applications—but I do want to go a bit deeper into the nature of retrospective planning permission to assess how great the problem is.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I want to raise two points. First, if 85 per cent. of retrospective planning permission applications are successful, that proves the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight, who
 said that far too many of them are automatically granted. Secondly, if a development is clearly against the plan, retrospective planning permission could be applied for and refused, that decision could be appealed against, enforcement action could be taken and that could be appealed against, then a judicial review could take place. Some persistent developers can use the system and through that mechanism prolong for a very long time the period before they have to knock the building down. In some cases, that period is not months but years.

Yvette Cooper: The hon. Gentleman's second point is about the nature of the enforcement system and the time it takes. That is certainly something we are considering as part of the enforcement review. It is not necessarily specific to retrospective planning permission or to the new clause; it is a broader point about the speed of enforcement, and I do have some sympathy with it.
 I do not think that we can simply argue that because 85 per cent. of applications receive permission, that means that they are automatically given permission because they are retrospective. I want to look at the figures more closely. They may well include many cases of minor applications, for example, when people did not realise that they needed planning permission for the work. I shall look more closely at that, and at the community perception that such matters are not handled fairly. It is important that the planning system is not only fair, but seen to be fair. I recognise the issues that hon. Members have raised, but the problem is not simple to resolve, because many different kinds of case are being picked up.

Andrew Turner: The Minister has been helpful, and says that she wants to examine such matters. Does she expect to be able to do so during the Bill's passage, before it leaves the other place?

Yvette Cooper: As I said at an earlier stage, we had hoped to respond to the enforcement review before the end of the year. I can undertake to write to the hon. Gentleman and let him know how far it will be possible to examine the matter, and the time scale over which I will be able to do so. I am responding to the concerns that he has raised in this debate and have not had a chance to discuss them further with officials, so I simply do not know how far it will be possible to consider them, or what time scale will be needed. I shall write to tell him what sort of matters we shall look into and what time scale will be involved, but I cannot give him a more detailed answer at this stage. On that basis, I ask him to withdraw the new clause.

Andrew Turner: I am grateful to the Minister for those words and for her promise to write to me. I hope that if she expects to do so by the end of this year, which may not accord entirely with the Government's timetable, it will be before the Bill leaves the other place.
 My first point, which I make quite strongly, is that the new clause in no way anticipates that every retrospective application will be turned down. However, it certainly builds up the expectation that retrospective applications will be dealt with on the same basis as other applications, which I think is what 
 most people would like, in the interests of fairness. As the Minister said, people who play the system should not be rewarded. I do not believe that all retrospective applications should be turned down, and many of the reasons that the Minister gave are excellent reasons why some should be granted. However, it would not be fair, for example, to grant retrospective permission because of sympathy for a developer who had knowingly and wittingly built a house in a rural area with an agricultural condition when any reasonable person could have told them that there was no prospect of making a living from agriculture on the land available when they built the house. That is a very common example in my constituency, and, I suspect, in many other rural areas. People apply for an agriculturally tied permission, then try to get the agricultural tie withdrawn later on the grounds that the property is not viable. 
 I am not entirely clear why the Minister said that it was against every principle of administrative law that one should be required to ignore certain material considerations. If those considerations are irrelevant to the decision being taken, surely it is a duty to ignore them. Such considerations are irrelevant to whether a planning application should be granted, so they are not material and should be ignored. I hope that that is clear. 
 I am grateful to the Minister for what she has said, and I will read the letter that she sends me with great interest. I hope that she is able to deliver something later in the proceedings on the Bill. Perhaps a suitable amendment can be made on Report or in another place to strengthen the position. I hope so, but for now I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. 
 Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 5 - RSS: revision

Matthew Green: I beg to move amendment No. 125, in
clause 5, page 3, line 20, at end insert 
 'within five years of publication of the previous RSS, or sooner'.
 The amendment would ensure that regional spatial strategies were regularly updated. They would be revised every five years, so regional planning bodies could not rest on their laurels in the preparation of up-to-date and relevant regional spatial strategies. I assume that the Minister would want regional spatial strategies to be regularly updated, and will be only too happy to accept the amendment.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: There should be something in the Bill about updating regional spatial strategies. In previous proceedings on the Bill, we have made it more than clear that we disapprove of the regional element of planning, and we will discuss the role of regional planning bodies when we come to later amendments. However, we accept that the Government wish there to be a regional role to planning.
 Designated regional planning bodies would not be properly democratically accountable, particularly in the absence of a referendum, but if they are to exist, their RSSs should be regularly reviewed—at least every five years. The hon. Member for Ludlow is right: such reviews should definitely take place within five years; indeed, we hope that they would take place sooner. The expectation should be that the RSS is regularly reviewed. After all, if the local planning authority is required to review its local plan documents regularly, there is no reason why the regional body should not live up to the same expectations.

Keith Hill: The amendment raises the issue of when the regional planning body should prepare draft revisions. Before I deal with the specific amendment, it may assist the Committee if I explain why the timetable for the preparation of draft revisions to regional spatial strategy needs to be flexible, and why primary legislation is not the best vehicle with which to govern it.
 Every region is different and faces different issues of differing complexity. Therefore, no two RSS revisions will be the same. That means that the time that it takes an RPB to consider all the issues properly, and when it will be necessary for them to prepare the draft revision, will vary. The time that RPBs will need to prepare revisions will also depend on the scope of the revision—whether it is a partial or a full review. 
 No Government have legislated for common fixed timetables for preparing, approving or adopting regional planning guidance or development plans. Fixed timetables are inevitably arbitrary and prevent the Secretary of State and the other parties involved in preparing RSS revisions from following the timetable best suited to the circumstances of the revision. 
 PPG11, on regional planning, set out an indicative timetable for the preparation of regional planning guidance. Its replacement—draft PPS11, on regional spatial strategies, which, the Committee will be aware, has been published for public consultation, also sets out such a timetable. It recommends that a project plan should be agreed between the Government office and the RPB for preparing the draft regional spatial strategy. We intend that the project plan should be published, and that the Secretary of State will assess the performance of the RPB against that timetable. We expect that it may generally take about two and a half years from the start of the revision process to the publication of the full and final RSS. The opportunity for more frequent reviews of particular parts of the RSS means that this timetable is fully achievable or may even be bettered. 
 Amendment No. 125 would require a regional planning board to prepare a draft revision of the RSS within five years of the publication of the previous RSS. It is important that RPBs have discretion to decide when best to prepare draft revisions of a regional spatial strategy. An RSS is meant to provide a broad development strategy for the region for at least at least a 15-year period and to address a wide range of issues and policy areas. It is important that it be kept up to date, but that does not suggest a fixed cycle of review. 
 A five-year review cycle might be appropriate for the transport elements of the RSS, so that they are prepared in time to inform the five-yearly reviews of local transport plans by county councils and unitary authorities under the Transport Act 2000. It is not necessarily appropriate for reviews of the RSS as a whole. 
 Clause 5(1) sets out a number of trigger points for the preparation of draft revisions. Usually, that will occur when the RPB decides that it is necessary. A key tool in deciding whether a revision is necessary will be the annual monitoring report, which will look at whether the RSS is being implemented in line with its aims. If it is not, we expect the RPB to say whether a revision to the RSS is necessary. However, experience over time may show that it would be sensible for parts of the RSS to be reviewed on a regular basis, and the Secretary of State would have a power to make regulations setting a time for such reviews. We have no plans to exercise that power, but it is sensible to provide for it. Regulations, rather than the Bill, are the appropriate way of providing such flexibility. 
 As a safeguard against the failure of an RPB to prepare a draft revision when the Secretary of State thinks it necessary, the Secretary of State would have a power to direct that it do so. After all, the RSS is the Secretary of State's policy, so it is right to enable him to ensure that work happens when he thinks sensible. The provisions will make sure that the RSS is revised when appropriate; an amendment setting an arbitrary fixed cycle is therefore unnecessary.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I hear what the Minister is saying, but unless the RSS is updated regularly—at least every five years—it will be difficult for local authorities to update their plans. Things might have changed, but the RSS might not have been updated to reflect those changes.

Keith Hill: I think that I have said that there is plenty of flexibility in the Government's proposals for
 the regular revision of regional spatial strategies. We differ over whether a set period should be laid down, and whether it should appear in the Bill. Broadly, I assure the hon. Member for Ludlow that the Government are highly alert to the issue of the RSS. On that basis, I urge him to withdraw his amendment.

Matthew Green: I thank the Minister. I have listened to him carefully and in many ways I am reassured. However, he drew attention to draft PPS11, a copy of which I have in front of me. There is almost a contradiction in it, in that it asks when RSS revisions should be prepared and answers, in paragraph 2.1:
''The RSS is part of a continuous planning process, not a document that is set in stone over its fifteen to twenty year life span.''
 How can it have a life span and also be a continuous document? If it is continuous, it does not have a life span. I find that slightly difficult. Presumably it does not have a life span, but is a series of rolling revisions, in which case I have a lot more sympathy with what the Minister is saying. The implication is that the RSS has a fixed life span, so perhaps the Minister should not only have regulations to provide for that, but make changes to the draft PPS.

Keith Hill: We can make changes to the draft PPS; that is the point of having a draft. The regional spatial strategy is meant to be a broad strategic document that takes a number of factors into consideration. I accept the hon. Gentleman's imagery of a rolling programme of revision, but the caveat that I would enter is—

Peter Pike: Order. I shall now suspend the Committee until this afternoon's sitting, and the Programming Sub-Committee will meet.
 It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order. 
 Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock.